It comes amid reports the US and Russia have prepared a 28-point peace plan, allegedly containing major concessions for Ukraine.

Poland and Romania scrambled Nato fighter jets early on Wednesday as a series of explosions rang out across western Ukraine. In Poland, two airports in its southeast were shut down as Russian airstrikes targeted the cities of Lviv and Ternopil. The Polish military said it was forced to act to ensure the safety of Polish airspace.

Ukraine has asked the Vatican to formalize its role facilitating negotiations for the return of Ukrainian children and civilians taken by Russia during the war.

Zelenskyy says "historic" deal to buy advanced Rafale fighter jets from France will give Ukraine some of the "greatest air defense" in the world against Russian attacks.

Russian attacks have killed four people and wounded more than a dozen in Balakliya and Velykyi Burluk in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. Two people have also been killed and many wounded in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

Denis Pushilin, the top Russian-backed official in Donetsk, said an attack by Ukrainian strike drones on energy infrastructure had left roughly 500,000 people without power across several districts. Work was continuing to restore the electricity supply, Pushilin wrote on Telegram.

Thousands of miles from the frontlines in Ukraine, where the Kremlin's war machine is steadily grinding forward, Russian forces face a potentially catastrophic situation in the West African nation of Mali as Al-Qaeda-loyal militants close in on the capital.